I was really excited to read Biggest Flirts by Jennifer Echols as I just adore her books and characters and I really wanted to love this one. Sadly though I didn’t fall head over heels in love with this one as I wanted to as I just never connected with the two main characters. I just found Tia and Will to be unlikable and never bought a romance between them. I also didn’t really see what they did in order to get voted as Biggest Flirts considering that they’d only known each other a couple of weeks and superlative elections happened right when school started. So there was a lot of suspension of belief.

Then there is the previously mentioned unlikablility of the characters. Tia was prickly and jealous and so super unmotivated. She was smart and talented and she would often underachieve on purpose. She said that she didn’t want to date because she didn’t want to end up like her sisters who were left pregnant and alone. And yet she’d engage in random hookups because that won’t leave you pregnant and alone. *insert eye roll here* You’d also think that she’d be more focused and driven trying to do all she can to succeed and to the the opposite of her sisters rather than essentially following in their path. Will wasn’t much better as he was sullen and moody and I could understand that considering he was forced to move right before his senior year. But in one breath he said he liked and wanted to date Tia and then a blink later was dating her mortal enemy ‘old Angelica.’ (And can I just say how much I hated that pointless nickname. Ugh)

The story was quick but it lacked depth and heart and just anything real. I wanted to smack the two main characters more than anything else and so didn’t care if they found a HEA. By the end I just wanted this book to be over and I main kept reading it because it was a Jennifer Echols book. However, Forget You, this one is not. I read this one is almost one sitting and until I hit the final page I had hopes that the story would turn itself around. Alas, that wasn’t the case and now I am on the fence on if I want to continue this series or not. I did like Tia’s friends far more than her so there is that positive. The negative though is that unless Tia suddenly moves we’re stuck with her for the duration. Blergh.

Last night I stayed up late in order to finish Going Too Far by Jennifer Echols but I didn’t stay up because this book was OMG good. No, instead I stayed up to finish it because I wanted it done.Last year, I read and really enjoyed Echols’s Forget You and so many reviewers/friends that I trust kept saying that Going Too Far was even better. The characters more raw, the story so moving and love interest more swoony. Sadly, for me, that wasn’t the case at all. I did not like Meg (the main character). I thought she was a bit off-putting- she’d always hide behind this wall of sarcasm and barbs meant to push people away and her internal monologue was very self-depreciating.

Meg is a girl who is a bit of a wild child she likes to break the rules and test the limits of those around her. Part of this rule breaking comes in dying her hair blue. But instead of wearing such a bold choice proudly she’d always talk down about it and how others must think of her. Like she couldn’t possibly snare a guy as hot as John After because she had blue hair. Blue haired girls where all freaks and losers and not worthy of anything. Blah blah blah. Really?? If she hated it so very much then why do it at all? And was it really Meg’s thoughts or was Echols’s putting in her own beliefs there. So her hair was blue…big deal. Look at Stephanie Perkins:

From the official site of Stephanie Perkins

She has blue hair and she is doing quite well for herself, book deals, lots of on-line stalkers fans, etc. But to hear Echols’s talk through the voice of Meg you would think that having such a bold color for hair is THE worst choice that a person could ever possibly make. Well, I am sure that Stephanie Perkins and many other friends of mine (who’ve rocked the locks in shades of green, pink, purple, etc) would disagree.

Hair color aside though…for all her tough talk Meg would put herself down. A lot. It became a serious annoyance. Here is this girl who has survived a horrible disease against the odds and all she seems to want to do is end her life as soon as possible with all her risky behavior. Talk about being a bit of a hypocrite. I know many who have died of cancer….good people who would never NEVER take their second chance for granted like Meg was doing. She kept talking about breaking free of the town and how she’d most likely be dead by 30 from things that she was doing….I was just like…wow….really? You are given this second chance and you are just gonna toss it without a care? I just couldn’t wrap my head around that. Such a waste!

Then there was John After, the supposedly swoon worthy male lead that everyone wishes were real. Yeah, not this girl. What a pompous ASS. His holy than though attitude….his over the top cop speak and mannerisms….his obsession with a bridge. He is someone I’d much rather slap than kiss and then I’d get arrested because I touched him in uniform. *rolls eyes* This character is 18 but he acts like he’s 40….in fact Meg initially thinks that he is 40….despite the fact that they were in the same Spanish class last year in school. Um yeah…while I may not remember all the people I went to high school with in the 15 years since I’ve graduated….I would recognize the faces of all my classmates if I was still in school and shared a class with them. Because like Meg, I grew up in a small town…small towns have small class sizes…and when you go to school with the same kids for a good 12 years or so. You learn who they are.

With the characters bugging me so much I haven’t talked a whole lot about plot…but there really wasn’t one. Meg gets caught trespassing on a train bridge with friends and they are all sentenced to ride a long for a week with the 3 departments that were called out when they were noticed. This was all to teach them some valuable life lessons and scare them straight. So Meg spends a week riding along in John After’s car and in 5 short days she falls madly in love with him and decides to turn her entire life around. Seriously. There was much eye rolling and disbelief when reading the last chapter of the book. It was just so unrealistic! I also never felt any real chemistry between John and Meg. So all in all this whole book fell flat for me and I think I might go re-read Forget You so I can wipe the bitter aftertaste that Going Too Far has left in my mouth.

For months now I have been badgered and berated (in a good way I swear) on Twitter by Erica, a friend and fellow blogger, to read a book by Jennifer Echols. She was stunned that I had never read anything by Echols before and has made it her mission to get me to read something. I tried to read Going to Far a few months back but the time wasn’t right for that book to grab me and so I put it down in favor of some reading commitments that I had to tackle. Then July came and I hit the most horrible reading slump. So far this month I haven’t been able to finish a single book – despite the seeming hundreds that I have started. Its been horrible Internet….absolutely horrible! And because it makes me so sad I’ve been asking my friends on Twitter for book ideas….which then lead the a fore mentioned Erica to renew her Jennifer Echols campaign.

I have to admit I was hesitant at first because I didn’t want to face another disappointment in not finishing another book. Which isn’t the books fault I just haven’t been able to focus. But yesterday I needed to get my oil changed and so I grabbed one of the first books I saw on my pile, which happened to be Forget You by Jennifer Echols. I was a bit iffy on the start of this story as I found it hard to put my finger on Zoey and I wasn’t sure if I liked her or not. Her BFFs also seemed a bit 1 dimensional and annoying in the short glimpses that we saw of them. Then the accident happened and everything changed.

From the time of the accident until the end I was hooked. I found that I couldn’t stop turning pages because I needed to know what happened that night. Zoey suffers from amnesia from a bump on the head and as a reader you follow her journey to try and piece events together. Its during this time that the supporting cast also starts to flesh out a little more. Especially Doug. Who is just a total swoon worthy male lead. He has a past – which I think they made a bigger deal than it really seemed to have been – but he’s such a great character. He’s the boy that every girl wishes she could meet. What I didn’t get was why Zoey was so hung up on Brandon when there was Doug trying to win her heart. Well, I can understand it but it just grew old fast. Zoey knew the sort of guy Brandon was and I think it made her look foolish to think that she’d be the one to change him.

But those annoying Zoey mooning over Brandon moments aside I loved the tension and the story of her and Doug. There was so much give and take which added to the realism of it all. My heart would leap and then nearly crack with each scene that they had. I also enjoyed the appearances of Doug’s brother Cody who was just a fun bundle of sarcasm….and the love and closeness between him and his brother was visible. In the end, once I started to read Forget You I found that I couldn’t put it down. I stayed up into the wee hours of the night just turning the pages eager to see what would happen next. I needed to know what happened the night of Zoey’s accident and if things would would out between her and Doug. I had to stop myself several times from flipping to the end to see if it would all work out. Forget You was a beautifully written story and I am so glad that I read it. So thank you Erica for being such a bully for this book and thanks to Jennifer Echols for putting such an amazing story out there in the world.

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